masur is a half decent bruckner conductor, but no more.
for me he joins the ranks of 'worthy but dull' conductors of which there are so many at the moment.

Having sung under Masur at one point, I can say that for all his faults he certainly knows how to get results. By whatever means (including making soprano soloist cry) he made damned sure that his vision of the piece (Elijah) was the one we were on the wavelength of.

Wagner tubas. YAY.

I was going to attend tonight, but after the poor rear of the Arena sound last night, I have decided to give it a miss.

The sound was pretty amazing, particularly the brass, which on several occasions nearly blew us off our feet.

Surprised to see nobody's commented on the mishap at the end of the Wagner encore... In the bars up to the final rendition of the main theme, Masur wanted to do an accelerando. The strings followed him all right, but the brass did a ritardando instead. When the theme arrived, the cymbal player got in a kerfuffle and followed the brass, therefore the clash appeared on the third beat of the bar!!

Masur shook his head and in the bars that followed just stood there and let the orchestra sort things out for themselves. 

[ed] o and the double basses must be mentioned. TWELVE of the big things, all lined up at the back of the stage. Sound to die for. Just been over to the other place and shocked at what i've read about the Bruckner. Obviously didn't come over too well on t'radio.